Immigration Rally to Pressure Obama March 21

Tens of thousands of people are expected to
converge in Washington, D.C., March 21 to remind President Barack
Obama of a campaign promise to overhaul the nations immigration laws.

It is time for Obama to deliver, said Shuya
Ohno, assistant communication director of the National Immigration Forum, a
prominent immigrant advocacy organization.

We are at a pivotal moment in the history of this
nation, states the Campaign to Reform Immigration for America on its
website. We can do nothing and watch as our families and communities continue
to be torn apart by the broken immigration system Or we can stand up.

In
his State of the Union address, I think Obama mentioned 36 words about
immigration, said Julissa
Bisono, the workplace justice
organizer at Make
the Road New York, which is organizing some
2,000 people to travel to the capital. Its
been a year already and immigration has been put on the back burner.

La Opinion and The LA Times reported March 4 that
Obama met with his Domestic Policy Council to discuss jump-starting the reform
effort and has pushed Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Lindsey Graham
(R-SC) to take the lead on crafting legislation.

Although this is a positive step forward, we
expect the President and Congress to move beyond meetings to concrete
bipartisan legislative action, said Ali Noorani, executive director of the
National Immigration Forum, in a March 5 statement.

The campaign says it has organized approximately
150 buses to bring New Yorkers to Washington
for the March for America.

Immigration is an absolute part of the American
story, Ohno said. This is for all Americans who really care about moving this
country forward.